President Donald Trump‘s executive order to remove biological males presenting themselves as transgender women, was blocked by a federal judge on Monday.
According to USA Today, 12 transgender female inmates were due to be transferred to male prisons, however, the inmates who are housed at the Bureau of Prisons facilities filed a lawsuit on January 30, claiming they would lose medical treatments if they were transferred to a prison that did not recognize their gender identities.
The inmates further argued they would be put at risk of harm, which violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Issuing a temporary restraining order February 18 against the transfer, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, extended the block with a preliminary injunction ruling the inmates had grounds to win their case under the Constitution.
Judge Lamberth wrote that “numerous government reports and regulations recognizing that transgender persons are at a significantly elevated risk of physical and sexual violence relative to other inmates when housed in a facility corresponding to their biological sex.”
Upon his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that designated only two sexes, and said the move would protect women from “gender ideology extremism.”
The inmates argue in their lawsuits that they would be at “extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence, and sexual assault,” and would be subjected to strip searches by male correctional officers, as well as being denied medical care.
However, government lawyers have argued that Judge Lamberth has no jurisdiction over the prison issue because prisons have not yet adopted a new policy for transgender inmates.
Rick Stover, senior deputy assistant director of the bureau’s designation and sentence computation center said in a statement that there are 2,198 transgender inmates in prisons and halfway houses, within the Bureau of Prisons. Of that total, 1,488 identified as male at birth, while 710 people identified as female at birth. Prisons have 22 transgender females in female institutions and one transgender male in a male institution.
